Doing it yourself....

As you are already aware, DIY is an an acronym for do-it-yourself. When I say DIY, I basically mean that we chose not have our wedding at a an event center or venue. You know, one where the bulk of the planning and execution is carried out for you by people who have all the necessary resources right at their fingertips. (Wow, that's sounds kinda nice, actually.) Instead, we planned and carried out most of everything ourselves. This means laboriously researching for local vendors, planning out how everything aligns to your budget, and then working to piece everything together to make it happen. So why were we crazy enough to do it this way? Well, let me tell you a secret.... I'm somewhat of a glutton for punishment.

Okay, Okay, let me tell you the real reason. A DIY wedding can help save you a lot of money. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on an all inclusive wedding at a wedding venue, we opted for saving money for our honeymoon and spending money on updating the home. We felt like it was a better investment. So, we tore down the old dilapidated deck, and built a brand new, beefed-up, larger deck. We also spent money landscaping the front of the house. We rented equipment to help clean up the woods and yard. We bought grass seed to fill in the holes in our yard. We paid to have our carpets cleaned and made a few, small updates to the house. Do you see where this is going? For the cost of renting a wedding venue, we now have something we can keep and continue to love and ultimately provide a return when the home is sold.

Demolition of the old, dilapidated deck

Landscaping the front yard

Staining our new and improved deck

We also chose to do everything ourselves, because in the end, along with the cost savings, the wedding turned out to be uniquely “us” and was exactly what we wanted in the first place…. the decor, the atmosphere, the food.... We felt that we may not have achieved this by using a venue. We wanted an outdoor wedding, and most places we looked at moved you inside immediately after the ceremony. This is simply not what we wanted... We wanted to be outside all night and not shuffled around. This is why we chose to have a backyard event.

Now, I'll have to admit, a DIY wedding is not for everyone. While it sounds nice to be able to save money, there is a trade off. It requires a huge time commitment and can be extremely stressful. I had to take a lot of time off of work and I even gave up my hobbies for quite a while in order to get things done. If you are someone who does not have the luxury of a lot of time on your hands (like I do *rolls eyes*), or does not do well with handling multiple projects at once (who me?), or is simply not a take-the-bull-the-horns kind of person (no cowgirls here), paying for a venue is a better choice. By the end of it all, I was kicking, screaming, pulling my hair out, snapping at my fiance, and otherwise a total wreck and ready for it all to be over. That never happens to brides who get married in an event center, right? Anyway, enough with the negativity. Let me show you our amazing backyard wedding! Enjoy!!

Our Wedding....

We wanted a relaxed setting that was beautiful and magical and still contained many formal elements. I think we were able to achieve just that. My vision for our backyard wedding was one that included a canopy of lights. We have tons of trees in the backyard, and it just so happens that six of them are in just the right spot to string lights from the roof and create the canopy of lights. The lights would span over the entire yard and also provide us a beautifully lit deck to share our first dance. I purchased a case of 100 strands of 35’ white lights on Ebay for $200. We ended up using less than 20 strands for the wedding, but I feel like it was a good investment. The case of lights will serve us for many Christmas’s to come! It was up to my future hubby to string them, which brought its own set of challenges (i.e. falling off the ladder twice…. I was so scared that he would break his legs or back a couple of weeks before the wedding… or worse, decide to quit! ...oh no!)

A Canopy of Lights Helped in Providing the Perfect Outdoor Ambiance

Above is my dad, (pretending to be) playing the trombone for the Father-Daughter dance. We danced to The Four Season's Opus 17. If you don't know the song, listen to it and you'll understand why I chose it..... It's more of a breakup song than a daddy-daughter song, but seriously, go listen. *tear*

I also wanted tons of mason jar lanterns everywhere. Yes, EVERYWHERE. I shopped on ebay and browsed thrift stores but could only find a few at a time. At ten or so dollars for each ebay listing, I may have ended up spending a small fortune. Patience certainly proves to be a virtue and I was lucky enough to come across a guy on Craigslist that was cleaning out his barn and had about 60 of them. He sold them to me for $30. I was able to string tons of lanterns from our cherry trees as well as place a good many of them all over our deck.

We had many Mason jars lining the railing of our deck.

A Do-it-OURself Wedding:

Sure, it may be called do-it-yourself; However, nothing could be further from the truth. In the case of wedding planning and execution, there is no such thing as do-it-yourself. That would pretty much be impossible. It should be more appropriately stated "do-it-OURSELF" or DIO. This is because you need tons of help from awesome friends and amazing family members. And that is exactly what we received! Take a look:

The Arbor....

Aside from the beautifully lit backyard, one of the most important pieces to me was the arbor under which we would stand. I wanted it to be a rustic, hand built arbor for us to stand beneath while saying our vows. At first I thought that I would build it myself. I most likely could have, but I also had a ton of other things to do, so I asked my super-talented uncle, who loves (as he calls it) “wood art” to help me. I sent some pictures of what I had in mind and what I liked. He got right to work collecting pieces from his woods and made an arbor that blew my socks off. He certainly has an eye for design and I have to say, it was more beautiful than I could imagine.

The arbor, right after my uncle set it up. We needed to send this picture to my aunts so they could plan the flowers, hence my uncles tip-toes and elongated posture... He's making himself tall like our preacher.

My dad and cousin securing the arbor with wire for my aunts. The flowers were pretty heavy. My fiance and I had been climbing ladders all week, narrowly escaping serious injury. My dad on a ladder scared the bejeezus out of me!

Our gorgeously decorated arbor!

The Flowers....

In the final weeks leading up to my big day, I was beginning to stress about not having a plan for flowers. I knew mostly what I wanted, but had not taken the necessary steps to line it up. That's when my aunt called me to tell me that she and my other aunt (her sister) were going to do all the work for me! Whew (*Wipes forehead*).... just in time! All my amazingly-awesome flower arrangements were put together by my two aunts. This required a ton of planning and work on their part. They designed and created the flowers for my arbor, the center pieces for my tables, my bouquet, corsages for the ladies, boutonnieres for the men, and all the other arrangements sprinkled throughout. These two ladies, along with my arbor-constructing uncle, share my tastes when it comes to design. I sent some pictures of what I had in mind, and again, my family comes through and tops my expectations! The flowers for the arbor were perfect and exactly what I had in mind.... and take a look at my bouquet. Is it not to die for? I'd say my fiance's boutonniere was quite dapper as well!

The aunts, discussing the flower arrangements. It was getting down to the wire... they completed the decorating without a moment to spare!

The cousins, recruited by my aunts, arranging the center pieces. YAY for cousins!!

Kelly (right) has got this whipped! Her mom was a florist at one time.

The Food....

One of the most important and often the most expensive element of any wedding is food. This is where we REALLY lucked up, and are forever indebted. My fiance and I knew we wanted excellent food that fit our outdoor theme, but we couldn't quite figure out how to hire a caterer that could offer us something that fell somewhere along that fine line of gourmet and casual. We were expecting this to be the biggest challenge; But fortunately for us, it fell right into our lap. Our buddies Carlos and David are starting a Bar-B-Q catering business and offered to do our wedding as a way for them to do a trial run. They offered to prepare all the food and all we would need to do is buy it. So, off to Sam's we went, and for an easy $600, were able to feed our 100 guests. Easy Squeezy, as my hubby likes to say. These two guys showed up at my house at around 4:30 in the morning and cooked all stinkin' day. The Bar-B-Q was delectable and many people commented to us later that it was the best they'd ever had. Their catering business is called Blue Moon BBQ and they are highly recommended. I encourage you to try it by hiring them for your next event!!! We had leftovers for days afterwards so that we could relive the experience again and again.

The Cake....

Not only did we luck up in having the food cooked free of charge, but we also had David's lovely wife offer to make our cake for us as well. We opted to go with cupcakes on a cupcake stand so that our guests could try her different flavors.... We had Red-Velvet, Key-Lime, Raspberry, Coconut, Chocolate, and Vanilla. It was sooooo difficult to choose a flavor, so some guests had one of each! Why not? On the top layer of the stand was the cutest (and tastiest) cake with tiny flowers. The entire display was done in our wedding colors. The cake's flowers were teal and the flowers accenting the stand were orange. Adorable! She also made us an extra cake for us to freeze for our anniversary as well.

The Brew....

Another expensive element of weddings is choosing to serve alcohol. We kept the this simple (and cheaper) by serving only beer and wine. We also allowed the guests the option of bring their own alcohol (which some of them did) and also allowing them to serve themselves, for the most part, what we were offering... they get more drunk that way. While we went with a cheaper, more basic wine, we wanted to offer our guests something unique in the way of beer. You may have already read about Michael's beer on my last blog post, but I can't say this enough.... Michael makes great beer. Please take the time to read more about it here. Offering our guests something locally brewed fell right in line with the atmosphere that we were going for.

The Music....

We went back and forth on how to do the music. Because we live in a neighborhood, we were a little reluctant to hire a DJ and we weren't sure we wanted to pay several hundred dollars for that anyway. We decided that it may be better to just play background music from our iPod. But then how would there be dancing? I mean, it could happen, but it's best to have a personality to interact with the crowd. This it where it pays off to have a high-energy (read: Crazy) college YouTube star as a cousin. Meet Robbie, my handsome second cousin who attends Valdosta State University and is somewhat of an internet sensation on campus. (Click here to go to his channel, but please click at your own risk, and make sure no children are in the room.... you've been warned). I asked Robbie to queue the songs on the iPod and interact with the people on the dance floor. My arbor-constructing (and did I mention guitarist in multiple bands) uncle provided the music equipment so Robbie could do his thing. So much for keeping the music down.... sorry neighbors.

The Grand Exit....

What's more awesome than having a friend with the coolest car in the world? Having a friend that will drive you off into the sunset in his coolest car in the world. The car was parked, hidden in the garage all night where we figured no one would notice it being there. We did this for two reasons: One, to surprise our guests with a show-boat exit. And Two, to keep people from trying to decorate it. I mean, would you want shaving cream and aluminum cans all over your car if it looked like this? No.

Other Essentials....

A great portion of our wedding needs were unavailable to us from family and friends, so we reached out to several local business to hire services and rent equipment. We rented tables, chairs, a smoker, and an outdoor restroom.... no, not a port-a-potty... an actual outdoor restroom. I hired someone to make the near-impossible snowmobile groom's cake. I also hired my hair stylist to do my hair and makeup. We hired a guitarist to play during the ceremony, and also hired a professional photographer. We hired a coordinator to carry out the evening events and to provide some servers for dinner and a clean up crew afterwards. This was very helpful, and I do not recommend that you try to host your wedding without some sort of personnel to help the evening flow properly.

Whelp, that's all folks. There's your thirty-thousand foot view of what it can mean to have a backyard wedding. Obviously, it can be a huge undertaking. It is important that you have your family and friends on board to help you. It makes all the difference in the world. I want to thank everyone who helped out to make our day special.

If you have any questions or would like some insight on having your own backyard wedding, or if you would like to share your own experiences, please comment below. I LOVE comments! Also, I would be happy to provide links for all the local businesses that were a part of my day. Please let me know if you'd like me to link something to your page.

Oh, and one last thing: One of the greatest things about my DIY/DIO weddings was that it inspired my to start Calligraphy by Kristen. After all, what good is a do-it-yourself wedding if you don't have do-it-yourself invitations and hand lettered envelopes to go with it? Read about The Mystery behind the History here.

Thanks so much for reading. Now enjoy some more pictures!

Rustic wedding sign.

The Koi. They matched our teal and orange wedding.

My beautiful tea length wedding dress. I went short because I'd be in the grass all night!

Half up-do wedding hair.

Orange chair sashes.

Teal and orange tables.

The snowmobile cake by Heidi's Cake Creations. It took me forever to find someone who was up to the challenge. Many people turned me down, stating that they couldn't do it. This cake was made to look just like my husband's actual Arctic Cat.

Daddy walking me down the aisle.

We wrote love letters to each other and sealed it away with a bottle of wine. We'll open it on our 5 year anniversary.

You may kiss the bride.... under her beautiful arbor.

The Bar-B-Q pulled pork and chicken from Blue Moon BBQ.

Checking for baby birds!

The S'mores Bar

Mason jar center pieces. Rose and orchid bouquet.

Annie, the dog. She's been with me since I was 16. She'll be 16 herself this year.

I'm so thrilled that you shared the blog of your wedding with me. It was wonderful to see it all set up. It was beautiful, as were you! Congratulations once again and thank you for allowing me to be involved in a small way with your celebration. I am tickled to have a nice picture of the cake too!

Thanks Heidi!! Your compliments are very sweet and I appreciate it. The cake was so amazing and people were very impressed with how true to life it was. You are such a talented person! I will be recommending you to my friends.

Reply

Robbie Gordon

2/10/2013 12:24:35 pm

Great Job Kristen!

Loved the blog, well written and AMAZING Pictures! I loved being there and enjoyed being the DJ!

Thanks Robbie! We had such a great time having you as our DJ! It was a blast and I think it turned out really well! It was awesome seeing you and I can't wait to see you again..... very soon! Love You!

Thanks for ready and Tweeting, Tracy! I love Tweets! We were so fortunate to have such great photographers there to capture our special day. You do wonderful work!

Reply

Aunt Patsy

2/11/2013 03:11:26 am

Fabulous!
Glad you got a picture of the Koi since they were instrumental in running us a little late with the flowers. We thought it would be easy to purchase a couple of fish in town, but instead it turned into a full blown mission. We are so thankful to Kelly and all the other family and friends who helped us finish in time. You will be happy to know the Koi (Kristen & Phil) now reside in Aunt Brenda's pond.
You and Phil are remarkable! With the DIY wedding, you were able to have so many special touches probably cost prohibited in a traditional wedding. It was a gutsy move but you two prevailed beautifully!
Congratulations.

I thought the Koi picture was adorable, so I had to included it. I had no idea that you guys were bringing fish! And I certainly had no idea until later that it was getting a little stressful out there. I guess the bride is not supposed to be aware of things like that, so you guys did a great job of keeping it together. Thank you so much for all your help in making our day so gorgeous!

It's the big day, the day of your wedding. You've planned everything so that it will go just perfectly, including the dress, the caterer, the cake, and the flowers. However, there may be one thing you have not thought about. How are you and your out-of-town guests going to get to the wedding hall? Are they all going to hop in your car? Are they going to arrive in a taxi? Are they going to take the bus? No, no and no. That's why you need a wedding transportation service for your big day.

Planning a wedding is such a detailed experience. There are so many different factors to take into consideration from your guest list to your venue to how to transport and accommodate guests that are travelling from abroad to attend your magical day. Wedding transport is one of the most important elements of your planning to ensure you enjoy comfort, luxury and convenience on your special day from your home to the ceremony and on to the reception, while knowing your guests are taken care of and that your day is going according to plan.